title: Controlled assembly: a prerequisite for the use of recombinant spider silk in regenerative medicine?
abstract: Recent biotechnological progress has enabled the production of spider silk proteins, spidroins, in heterologous hosts. Matrices based on recombinant spidroins support stem cell growth and are well tolerated when implanted in living tissue, thus the material is highly attractive for use in regenerative medicine. However, the matrices made are far from natural silk in terms of mechanical properties and are either spontaneously assembled, which results in heterogeneous products, or spun from harsh solvents with the concomitant risk of harmful remnants in the final products. If we could mimic the spider's aqueous silk spinning process we would likely obtain a material that had reproducible and better characteristics and that more easily could be transferred to clinical practice. Herein, the knowledge of the spiders' silk production system and the prerequisites for artificial spinning and assembly of recombinant proteins are reviewed and discussed in a biomedical context.
authors.affiliation: KI-Alzheimer Disease Research Center, NVS (Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society) Department, Karolinska Institutet, 141 86 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Anatomy Physiology and Biochemistry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, The Biomedical Centre, Box 575, 751 23 Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic address: anna.rising@ki.se.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rising
mesh_terms: D000825:Animal Structures / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D058105:Polymerization / Q000187:drug effects; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000494:pharmacology*; D044968:Regenerative Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D047011:Silk / Q000494:pharmacology*; D013112:Spiders / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D047011:Silk
keywords: Assembly; Protein; Recombinant; Scaffold; Spidroin